John's talk with Sherlock in The Lying Detective

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

Q: You've said that John's marriage is 'heading down a pretty dark path' and disintegrating in TST, and sometimes he's probably even hated her. So firstly, was his talk with Sherlock in TLD actually meant to suggest he wishes he could've saved the marriage and genuinely wants Sherlock to be in a relationship with someone else?

A: John’s talk with Sherlock was about John’s own failures. It’s odd to me to look at it as “wishing he could’ve saved the marriage”, because John’s not exactly talking about his marriage. He’s talking about how he failed to be the person he hoped he would be, the one everyone assumes he is. I mean, he wishes he had been a faithful, trusting and loving husband, is that “saving the marriage”? I suppose it is. He hadn’t ended his marriage though. John knew what he was doing to Mary and hated himself for it.

At this point John won’t ever know what would have happened if Mary hadn’t died. Would he have confessed his sins, been more honest, found his way back to loving her, saved his marriage? Perhaps he believes that he would have continued to betray and hurt her instead. That must be how he sees himself; he has grown terrible and cannot recover. With Mary dead, it seems he doesn’t have a chance to.

Does John genuinely want Sherlock to be in a relationship with someone else? In that moment, yes. He certainly does.

At a couple of points in The Lying Detective, John turns his back on his life with Sherlock; he says goodbye when he leaves the cane in Sherlock’s hospital room, and I’m 100% sure that was meant to be a final goodbye. When John is waiting with Sherlock in 221b for Molly to arrive, he nearly leaves 20 minutes early. Those 20 minutes, I think, are pretty critical. They represent a major life decision: either he’s in Sherlock’s life with both feet, or he’s essentially out. He tries to leave early, he tries to bail entirely. He’s resigning from the role of Sherlock’s one true companion for a second time in the episode.

John doesn’t leave Sherlock because he doesn’t love him or doesn’t want to go on adventures with him. He does it because he’s painfully aware of what a terrible partner and companion he actually is. John’s seeming rejection of Sherlock are expressions his own self-loathing and self-punishment.

When John tells Sherlock to find someone who makes him want to be better, he is, as we well know, describing his own impact on Sherlock’s life. But John has lost faith in his ability to be that person. So he wants Sherlock to find himself someone who is actually good enough.

But John is good enough. It doesn’t matter that he has the capacity to fail so spectacularly. It’s allowed. He is exactly what Sherlock needs, not in spite of, but with his flaws. He’s not the perfect moral compass and hero that he wants to be, and that everyone expects him to be, but it doesn’t matter. He still is what he is; Sherlock’s perfect partner.

John doesn’t leave 20 minutes early. Instead, he stays with Sherlock well past that. And as we see in The Final Problem, John is back in his role, not just as a trusted companion, but as family. And he has happily accepted that.